Exhibiting at West Kensington’s Vision 2017 event, WASP 3D printers celebrate the London Festival of Architecture with a mathematically designed wall-sculpture. Candidly named, The Mathematically unpredictable Shape has been created as part of the WASProject’s vision in which every part of a house, from the walls to the furniture, is 3D printed.
Speaking to WASProject designers and engineers at the event, 3D Printing Industry gain an insight into modular design and the company’s proposed WASP Starter Kit.
Definition with a magnetic charge
The Mathematically unpredictable Shape wall was designed by WASProject architectural designer Lapo Naldoni. It started as a simple shape, created by using repeating loops of plastic. As a flat surface however, it was difficult to see its varied texture, and so Naldoni decided to add indents to add a more dramatic effect to the piece.
He explains the modeling of these indents as “adding a magnetic charge” to the structure, attracting and repelling a gradient in the wall. The result is a dynamic piece that looks almost liquid rather than solid, reflecting the nature through which it was made.
3D printing of the panels of the WASProject wall.
The entire structure, around 7 feet tall in height, is made from 20 3D printed panels connected using metal screws. Design in Rhino and Grasshopper 3D modeling programs took two days to complete, and overall fabrication took a further two days, working with five DeltaWASP 3MT 3D printers.
The all-in-one kit for 3D printed houses
Further explaining the concept of the wall, Nicola Schiavarelli, research and development engineer at WASProject, says how he envisions such wall designs as a part of the WASP Starter Kit. According to Schiavarelli, the WASP starter kit contains a “big 3D printer to print houses, one 3D printer to print furniture, and a small 3D printer to print [things like] glasses with a porcelain extruder”.
This kit is currently in development, and aims to provide companies with all the tools needed for manufacturing.
To this Schiavarelli also adds how the printheads of a WASP 3MT can be exchanged to extrude different materials including cement, as previously reported on 3D Printing Industry, or even a CNC tool for subtractive milling of an object.
At Vision 2017, WASProject representatives also gave a rundown of the recently released Industrial DeltaWASP 3MT and 40 70 models. These models upgrade the company’s existing technology with a heated print bed and an enclosed build chamber, for facilitated 3D printing of a wider range of industrial grade plastics.
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Featured image: Preliminary sketch of the WASP 3D printer setup as Vision 2017. Image via wasproject.it
